Lots of interest in smart ways to write articles

FUTURE FACULTY. Is there a smarter way to go about your article writing so that it is more effective and takes less time? When Professor Gunnar Steineck recently shared his experiences, there was a lot of interest in hearing about it. More than 50 people signed up in advance for the seminar, which was arranged by Future Faculty.

On September 4 Gunnar Steineck held his lecture on strategies for more effective writing of scientific articles at the invitation of Future Faculty. There’s no doubt that Gunnar knows his subject: he has published over 300 articles and has an h-index of 55. Future Faculty’s initiative to invite him was appreciated, and more than 50 people signed up in advance for the seminar.

Gunnar Steineck touched on several different aspects of writing, such as how to create a great framework on which to build the article; the balance between getting articles published quickly and aiming for demanding high-impact journals; and how to handle the conflict between being effective and letting doctoral students practice writing.

Here are some brief tips from the seminar:

• Use three hours with the key authors (first, second, next-to-last [the senior’s senior], last and statistician) to carefully answer with a sentence the framework’s four questions: Why did we start? What did we do? What is the most important lesson? How can the lesson be used clinically or scientifically?
• Write the Introduction next-to-last and the Abstract at the very end.
• Send tablesetters, position papers and some empirical articles to journals with a low impact factor; put a higher priority on the readers’ interests and the journal’s profile than impact for journals with an impact factor under 20.0, and prepare the submission of carefully selected articles to the best journals with tablesetters and position papers.

Steineck also talked about how researchers who are early in their careers may run into more senior researchers who take credit for the work and must decide whether it is worthwhile to start a conflict. The advice in that case is generally “No. In the worst cases, you can put your career at risk. But never forget about it, and never collaborate with that person again!”

TEXT: CECILIA BULL / ELIN LINDSTRÖM CLAESSEN
PHOTO: CECILIA BULL